“Jess,” he said hoarsely, “God forgive me! I love you!” and he bent forward to kiss her.
She lifted her face towards him, then suddenly changed her mind, and laid her hand upon his breast.
“You forget,” she said almost solemnly, “you are going to marry Bessie.”
Crushed by a deep sense of shame, and by a knowledge of the calamity that had overtaken him, John turned and limped from the house.
CHAPTER XVIII.
AND AFTER
In front of the door of “The Palatial” was a garden-bed filled with weeds and flowers mixed up together like the good and evil in the heart of a man, and to the right-hand side of this bed stood an old and backless wooden chair. No sooner had John limped outside the door of the cottage than he became sensible that, what between one thing and another—weariness, loss of blood from his wound, and intense mental emotion—if he did not sit down somewhere quickly, he should follow the example set by Jess and faint away. Accordingly he steered for the old chair and sank into it with gratitude. Presently he saw Mrs. Neville running up the path with a bottle of brandy in her hand.
“Ah!” he thought to himself, “that will just come in handy for me. If I don’t have a glass of brandy soon I shall roll off this infernal chair—I am sure of it.”
“Where is Jess?” panted Mrs. Neville.
“In there,” he said; “she has recovered. It would have been better for us both if she hadn’t,” he added to himself.
“Why, bless me, Captain Niel, how queer you look!” said Mrs. Neville, fanning herself with her hat; “and there is such a row going on at the camp there; the volunteers swear that they will attack the military for deserting them, and I don’t know what all; and they simply wouldn’t believe me when I said you were not shot. Why, I never! Look! your boot is full of blood! So you were hit after all.”